Hindawi Publishing Corporation 2009

The Open-Access Contributor-Pays Model

Hindawi Publishing Corporation, a Cairo-based for-profit publisher of science, technology and medical journals, was founded as a subscription-based publisher in 1997. By 2003 Hindawi had begun exploring Open Access models; by 2007 it had become an entirely Open Access publisher, and it now publishes 160 Open Access STM journals. Hindawi’s financial model is based on charging contributors a fee per article published, a model also currently used by BioMed Central and PLoS, among others. Since 2007, Hindawi has continued to refine its business model, in particular through its partnership with scholarly publisher SAGE and by introducing institutional memberships earlier this year. This case study explores Hindawi’s path to choosing this financial model and the opportunities and challenges it has posed.

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